A colonial legacy of cultural and epistemic genocide: limited education access, family dislocation and premature death of Indigenous Youth in Northern Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT

Using a philosophical framework of epistemic injustice and epistemic resistance (Fricker, 2007; Medina, 2013), we examine the recent deaths of nine Indigenous youths in a Northern Ontario city, Thunder Bay. We first document various reports and then we interrogate the impact of this violence on Indigenous communities, considering the egregious impact of epistemic injustice as it plays out on a personal and on a systemic and structural level. We theorise ways to counterbalance this systemic injustice and highlight the current efforts of epistemic resistance within the Indigenous community. We close with discussion around historical responses to this long history of cultural and epistemic genocide and how we can interrogate the structural construction of epistemic injustice and further promote epistemic resistance.

KEYWORDS:

• epistemic justice
• epistemic resistance
• Indigenous youth
• Northern Ontario
• social justice
• social work

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).